Grateful Dead

THE worst cover of any of Dave's Picks by a long shot. Very disappointing.

Rock on

Can't wait to find out what parts of these fantastic looking shows we're gonna be devouring! I've been preparing by listening to DaP 6 2/2/70 (the show after the New Orleans bust, and sans TC), and 12/20/69, finished 2/2 on lunch break in the car, hoping Pig didn't go too much on the "reach over my left shoulder" rap as there was a young lady sunning herself whilst I blasted my music with my windows down eating my Zaxby's. But since somebody suggested they go into Not Fade Away for shits and giggles, we were all spared from a salacious Pig rap from 1970, and he only mentioned getting yo hands outta yo pockets once I recall. But the ride home featured the incredibly lovely 20 min Dark Star opener from the second show, 12/20/69 at the Fillmore West (with TC), 9 months previously the site of 4 nights of fire and fury captured for all eternity on 16 track reels (the first ever 16 track live recording) and gifting the universe with Live/Dead, but a lot had happened over the course of 9 months, if the setlist stayed somewhat the same. The band on the second part of DaP 6 goes Dark Star> St Stephen> The Eleven> New Speedway Boogie instead of into the Lovelight they eventually get to, and instead of light, they plunge into the darkness that was Hunter S Thompson's great crashing wave, sweeping the dreams and idealism of the 60s back out to sea. Talk about coming full circle... Which brings me back to DaP 30 and the wonderful mystery meat we get to devour in just over 2 weeks time. From 2 weeks after they played the Fillmore West, they were on the left coast to play Bill's legendary theater, and here's the only thing missing from keithfan's post, the 1/3 setlist:
Ealy show: Morning Dew, Me And My Uncle, Hard To Handle, Cumberland Blues, Cold Rain & Snow, Alligator > Drums > Jam > Bid You Goodnight Jam > Jam > Alligator Jam & Reprise > Caution Jam > Feedback, E: Uncle John's Band;
Entire Late show played was: Casey Jones, Mama Tried, Big Boss Man, China Cat Sunflower-> Jam-> I Know You Rider-> High Time Tease, Mason's Children, Cryptical Envelopment-> Drums-> The Other One-> Cryptical Envelopment-> Cosmic Charlie, Uncle John's Band-> Black Peter, Dire Wolf, Good Lovin', Dancin' In The Streets-> Drums-> Dancin' In The Streets, E: Saint Stephen-> In The Midnight Hour

I am so looking forward to hearing some tasty stuff from that! I'm actually listening to The Other One from it now... But the combinations of these setlists is just mindblowing. We get everything. It's a Thanksgiving feast of epic proportions.

And I wonder if these were part of the Houseboat Tapes, been a while since we got something from that batch. DaP 19 1/23-24/70 I believe was from that, as well as DaP 6 as mentioned above, and DaP 10 Thelma 12/10-11/69.

Also, no 1969 show to come out with Aoxomoxoa?

....it's fresh on my brain, but I freaking love it!! Looks like my dog's paws! And dogs are always the first to greet you when you get home. If you scroll down a bit, you get a cool rotating AOXOMOXOA thing. Ye haw!!
Newcastle 4.11.72's first set is under the belt. Taking a break. I'm exhausted though, so the second set may be broken up.

Fargin Bastages..

Edit: One of the kind folks here forwarded me the email.. agree, they seem to be wolf paws. I like the cover art if for no other reason there are no cartoonish skeletons and especially no skeletons with full beards.

Fantastic cover, no skeletons, no beards; just the Dire Wolf's paws.

the email just hit my box that the sale date for DP 30 is next Thursday the 18th...Don't quite understand the cover but that's ok...

I'm from the Philly area, so it was big news that the Grateful Dead were taking the stage for the last event that would ever be played at JFK Stadium. It was the summer between my Junior and Senior years of high school. What do I remember? Well, I've told this story before, so if you've heard it, feel free to stop me.....

It was a sweltering hot sunny day, as humid as NJ and Philly ever get. I had no idea I was going to the show until 4pm that day. I was sitting at my kitchen table playing around with my brother's unloaded Glock, shooting imaginary bad guys, just like Martin Riggs had done a few hours earlier at the premier of Lethal Weapon 2. As I goofed around with the 9mm, which, I actually had a legitimate reason for holding nearby (the purpose of which does not come into this story), I made phone calls to WMMR and WYSP, as well as the local record stores, in an effort to figure out the song that was played at the end of the movie, right as it looked like it might be Riggs' last stand; after all, he was lying in a pool of blood with knife and gunshot wounds, and the most somber gospely blues tune I ever heard playing - something about going to Heaven. Well, [SPOILER ALERT] Riggs lived to make two bad sequels to the sequel, and my eyes dried up by the time I left the theater; but I couldn't remember how that damn song went, and nobody I contacted had a clue.

Then into my house walked two complete strangers: one was tall and lean, perhaps a year or two older than me; the other was a little bit shorter, thickly bearded, and smiling. I wasn’t expecting anyone when I heard the front door open, so call it instinct if you will - you know, the kind of instinct that guides us to mindlessly remove bongs and other various sundries from site, when an unannounced visitor enters our domain - only it was the Glock and ammo cartridge that I was reaching for. I might have jammed the clip in at once if the shorter bastard hadn’t been smiling so friendly and looking so damn familiar. He greeted me by name, still smiling, still friendly-like. You would think this might have settled my uneasiness, but among other things, the FBI guys instructed my brother not to acknowledge any strangers who called out his name (apparently this is a technique that some would-be harm-doers use to identify a target they’ve never met in person). A lot of things went through my mind in a flash: I should have loaded the gun instead of hiding it; I should have locked the door after I came back from the matinee; I can’t believe this “very small chance they would bother us” possibility came to pass; but overriding all of that second guessing was a rush of adrenaline that hit me when I realized they never saw the gun. I croaked “hello” or something equivalent, and began to insert the clip, out of site, under the table. I had no reservations about living out a different movie now, the one where our hero famously gets off a round from under the table - kill or be killed - at least until George Lucas got bored and started f***ing around with CGI; except now the bearded hippie SOUNDED familiar too. The whole encounter played out in just a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. The voice belonged to my cousin from Buffalo. We're the same age and grew up spending a couple of weeks a year together; but up until that day, the visits were announced, and he certainly never showed up long haired and bearded (hell, I didn't even know he could grow a damn beard yet - we were only 17). Never met his friend before, so the duo WERE 50% strangers. Suffice it to say they didn't get shot that day, but the story echoed through our lives for many years.

His buddy had come with him from the Truckin' Up To Buffalo show on the 4th of July. They enjoyed it so much they decided to surprise me with a visit and an invitation to go. I was not too familiar with Dead in those days. I knew In The Dark from MTV and MMR, and I may have heard Friend of the Devil once. But I wasn’t about to pass a Dead show by, just because I didn’t know their music. After all, my cousin was my partner in crime: we'd seen KISS in '79, Rush in '86 and '87, Van Halen in '86 on Sammy's first tour, Pink Floyd in '88; and now we had driver's licenses, so it was only getting better. He was supposed to be arriving a couple of days later for The Who Reunion at Vet Stadium, and then we had the Stones Steel Wheels Tour kicking off at the end of August. Good times.

I remember the circus atmosphere of the crowd at JFK. I imagine the tailgating scene in the 70s was a drop in the bucket compared to this. We've all been to the rodeo, so I won't rehash it. But it made me feel liberated, watching all of these liberated people. Liberated from what? I don't know - just free. However free you may feel, I think live music intensifies that feeling, and I don't think any more so than with the Dead. I'd never seen so many people in one place before. When Jerry walked out, I remember my cousin smiling and saying "there he is – Jerry Garcia. He's like a messiah around here." My response was, "well, he has my respect - he's playing Pete's Woodstock guitar". Of course in hindsight, he was not - at least not since 1970. The guitar I mistook for Townshend's "Woodstock guitar" was The Tiger, which has a very similar shape and color. Pete had played the Gibson SG, which Jerry also used on Live Dead and into 1970 (depicted on DaP Vol 6). The crowd erupted when Jerry walked out, like no greeting I'd ever seen for a band, let alone one guy in the band (he came last and was greeted loudest).

Then completely unheralded - no light show or elaborate stage rig, no announcement stating we'd got the best - they just simply started playing Hell In A Bucket. Good by me, I knew that song. But that was like a soundcheck for the crowd. The real DeadHead personalities came out on the next number - Iko Iko. Now that was a unique concert experience. In the course of the next 7 or 8 minutes, I GOT what all of the hoopla was about for this band. If ever a performance captured a band's soul and spirit and allowed it to be imbibed by the audience, it was Iko Iko at JFK, where the kids all danced and shaked their bones. Did I mention all of the beach balls? It was a sea of Tie-Dye and beach balls.

Check out the contrast in crowd movement between Hell In A Bucket, the show opener, and Iko Iko, song #2

Hell In A Bucket:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkAzMiEUUQ8

Iko Iko (crowd shots around 1:47, 2:10, and 3:02):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMpaD-ktv7Q

Highlights at the time include Blow Away, Standing on the Moon, Garcia's soloing during Scarlet Begonias (how did he produce that tone???), the crowd singing Fire On The Mountain, and of course the encore, which, by some strange twist of fate was the very song I was trying to track down from the Lethal Weapon movie. I turned to my cousin and exclaimed "holy shit! THIS is the song I was talking about from the movie!"

"Oh!" he said, "This is an old Bob Dylan song - Knockin' On Heaven's Door."

Amen.

Got to say you know how you always secretly hope that the shows you attended will always be released, well I have to say these two I can wait for other shows to be released. I am a pretty positive person and would love to see a show tomorrow with the lineup that played at these shows. Not knocking these years because I saw the 3 Alpine shows from July 89 which were awesome, and the 88 Landover shows with Ripple... 4/11/89 Rosemont Horizon had a great Shakedown to open also. They were just the shows that you went to hoping to get that killer show. The Mecca shows from 4/15 and 4/16/89 were really good!! Maybe I am just trying to say in a round about way that there a lot of good shows that can still be released! Or maybe they used all the magic up on 4/11/72?? bob t

You guys (and hopefully gals) are awesome. Great posts.. great vibes.. plenty of energy and ideas on what to listen to next.

Thank you.

thanks Keithfan - I was actually thinking of you the other day when I was listening to the Crimson White & Indigo release (7/7/89 I believe). You were there right? Must have been an awesome experience!

1989 is full of so many amazing shows up and down the calendar. Wouldn't mind seeing a Dave's Picks from say, 10/19/89 (one of my favorite all time shows)